Woodton is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the English

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nor ...

. It is situated some 7 km north-west of the

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include ...

town of

Bungay Bungay () is a market town, civil parish and electoral ward in the English county of Suffolk.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . It lies in the Waveney Valley, west of Beccles on the edge of The Broads, and at the neck of a mean ...

, and

20 km The 20K run (20 kilometres, or approximately 12.4 miles) is a long distance foot race. It is a rarely held race that is not recognized as an Olympic event. The event held IAAF world championship status in 2006 only, when the existing IAAF World ...

south-east of

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the Episcopal see, See of ...

. The civil parish has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of 472 in 194 households, increasing to 482 at the 2011 Census. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivision ...

South Norfolk South Norfolk is a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Long Stratton. The population of the Local Authority District was 124,012 as taken at the United Kingdom census, 2011, 2011 ...

. The village's name indicates a settlement in the woods (wudu, ‘woods’ + tun ‘enclosure, settlement, farm’). Over the years different variants of the name have been used, including ''Wdetuna'', ''Wodetuna'', ''Wodetone'', ''Wudetuna'', ''Uidetuna'' and ''Wootton''. A number of

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

ring ditch In archaeology, a ring ditch is a trench of circular or penannular plan, cut into bedrock. They are usually identified through aerial photography either as soil marks or cropmarks. When excavated, ring ditches are usually found to be the ploughed� ...

es dating from between the

23rd century BC The 23rd century BC was a century that lasted from the year 2300 BC to 2201 BC. Events * 2334 BC – 2279 BC: (short chronology) Sargon of Akkad's conquest of Mesopotamia. *c. 2300 BC: Indus Valley civilisation (Harappan) flourishing in modern- ...

and the 7th century BC have been identified in the area. Arms Suckling (of Wootton, Norfolk)

In 1575 Robert Suckling became Lord of the whole of Woodton, and various members of the

Suckling Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be expressed by hand or pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that bre ...

family lived in the parish, including

John Suckling (poet) Sir John Suckling (10 February 1609 – after May 1641) was an English poet, prominent among those renowned for careless gaiety and wit – the accomplishments of a Cavalier poet. He also invented the card game cribbage. He is best known for his ...

and Catherine Suckling (the mother of

Horatio Nelson Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was a British flag officer in the Royal Navy. His inspirational leadership, grasp of strategy, and unconventional tactics brought a ...

). The Sucklings were

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

until 1810. The Woodton sanctuary has a portrait of Nelson's great-great-grandmother: Ann Suckling (d. 1653) is "beautifully and sensitively sculpted". Wootton Hall was built in 1694 and in 1862 was listed as the seat of Robert Suckling and his wife Sarah Shelton; it was demolished in 1841–2.

Woodton All Saints church

The church of Woodton All Saints is a

round-tower church Round-tower churches are a type of church found mainly in England, mostly in East Anglia; of about 185 surviving examples in the country, 124 are in Norfolk, 38 in Suffolk, six in Essex, three in Sussex and two each in Cambridgeshire and Berksh ...

; the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. ...

are from the 1300s, with a slightly more recent aisle. The roof is arch-braced and original; the chapel in the aisle must at one time have been lavish. The inside window is decorated with a bearded head and a

Michaelmas Michaelmas ( ; also known as the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the Feast of the Archangels, or the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels) is a Christian festival observed in some Western liturgical calendars on 29 September, a ...

-style flower motif, and there are medieval glass images of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret. The tower has a 15th-century octagonal top. The pulpit is Jacobean, and the

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman Ca ...

is an unusual 13th-c example. The glass of the east window was made by

Lavers, Barraud and Westlake Lavers, Barraud and Westlake were an English firm that produced stained glass windows from 1855 until 1921. They were part of the 19th-century Gothic Revival movement that had a significant influence on English civic, ecclesiastical and domestic ar ...

, for a church in Kent in the 1830s; when that church had the windows restored in 1932, the parish had a problem with the devil in the center scene, and the Woodton rector bought the window for his own church. The window, however, did not fit perfectly, and in the end the devil had to be excised: what is left of him is an olive-green wing under the right hand of Christ. After a restoration in 1880, a porch on the south side was added.

References

External links

.
All Saints on the European Round Tower Churches website
Villages in Norfolk Civil parishes in Norfolk {{Norfolk-geo-stub